The Ecumenical Patriarch has accepted the invitation to participate as a guest of honor at the annual conference of the Centesismus Annus foundation, which will take place between May 24 and 26. It will be the eighth meeting with Pope Francis.

Istanbul (AsiaNews) – The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I has accepted the invitation to participate as a guest of honor at the annual conference of the Centesismus Annus foundation, which will take place between May 24 and 26 in the Vatican on the theme: “New policies and new styles of life in the digital age”.

Bartolomeo I will intervene on May 26, with a reflection on: “A common Christian agenda for the common good”.

In his letter of acceptance published today, Bartolomeo recalls that the conference will give him the opportunity to meet once again his beloved brother Pope Francis.

For the record it will be the eighth time that Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch will meet, while Patriarch Bartholomew had already been invited by Pope Benedict XVI to speak at the Vatican at the Synod of Catholic bishops in October 2008.

The true ecumenical path passes through concrete initiatives that address the problems of a globalized society, the Phanar said.

“We need shared responses, without confessional distinctions, to meet the challenges and tragedies that affect the whole Christian world,” the Ecumenical Patriarch told AsiaNews. When Athenagoras travelled to Constantinople for his inauguration, he asked to fly over the Vatican. Nicaea was the first “truly ecumenical” council, whose 1,700th anniversary will be marked in 2025. Bartholomew calls on Christians to meet then “to celebrate the undivided Church.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch attended Mass in Bari’s Basilica of St Nicholas. We “cannot be silent before the scandal of the commodification of people, of religious fundamentalism that claims to act in the God’s name, of man’s exploitation of man, of the depletion of natural resources for the benefit of a few to the detriment of the many, especially the poorest.”